The AEJ welcomed
the release of Magnus Falkehed, Niclas Hammarström and Bunyamin
Aygün by their Syrian captors. These releases follow forceful protests
from the French and Turkish sections in November and December. Seeaej.org

23 January

TheCouncil of Europe has put forward a
package of radical measures to protect journalists whose safety is at risk,
including a rapid response mechanism and an internet-based early warning
system. Seeaej.org

31 January

AEJ
colleagues in Ukraine appealed for the support and solidarity of the AEJ and
other journalism bodies. Those reporting the disturbances in Kiev and
elsewhere routinely faced abuse and violence. The International and European
Federations of Journalists launched the "SOS
Kiev" campaign.

17 February

Peter Greste was
one of four al-Jazeera journalists held in Tora prison on spurious charges.
Their trial opened on 20 February. Avaaz launched a petition
for his release, already signed by nearly 35,000 people. The 600 "Friends
of Peter Greste" were privileged to receive his "Letters from
Tora Jail" – testimony to his courage and clarity, and a
significant document in the history of journalism standing up to state misuse
of power. See also William
Horsley's article in Blogs &
Briefings

19 February

Don Hatwell, member
of the UK section since its creation, published another book. This time he
collected up a miscellany of his writings as a journalist and reviewer on
just about every topic one can think of. Details in AEJ in the UK

21 February

European monitoring
groups expressed concerns about the pressure the Turkish government was bringing
to bear on the media. A full report by Meneske Tokyay was published in SES
Türkiye

22 February

A protest was held
in Ankara calling for an end to media oppression and asking Turkey's
President Gül to veto a bill, passed by parliament on 6 February, that
would allow the government to block online content. The protest was organised
by the G-9 journalists' groups chaired by AEJ Hon President Dogan Tilic. Seeaej.org

4 March

The Ukraine section
of the AEJ joined other journalistic organisations in an appeal to foreign
media to beware of Russian propaganda. Seeaej.org

7 March

Harassment of
journalists in Crimea has prompted the AEJ to condemn an attack on two
Bulgarian journalists who had their equipment confiscated by paramilitaries
after filming masked gunmen stealing from other media workers. The two were
uninjured and continued to work in Crimea. Seeaej.org

17 March

The European Court
of Human Rights called on Ukraine and Russia to refrain from taking any
measures that might entail breaches of Convention rights of the civilian
population of Crimea and to take measures as soon as possible to ensure that
the Convention was fully complied with (seeaej.org). Earlier, the IFJ
and EFJ protested at the conditions imposed on journalists by the regional
government when covering the referendum on 16 March. Seeaej.org

28 April

The AEJ expressed grave
concern that the year's World Press Freedom Day marked a further escalation
in the violent repression of journalists’ work and attempts to stifle
free speech in many countries. Seeaej.org

1-12 May

Reports
on press freedom activities to mark World Press Freedom Day around Europe
have been posted on the AEJ's international website:

The
Council of Europe called on its 47 member states to fulfil their obligation
to protect journalists and other media actors from intimidation and attacks,
and to adopt national legal frameworks for the protection of whistleblowers. Seeaej.org

8 May

Marking World Press
Freedom Day, UNESCO launched its World Trends in Freedom of Expression and
Media Development, including shocking evidence of many states’
persistent failure to find and punish those responsible for killings of
journalists. Seeaej.org

21 May

The
second edition of the OSCE Safety of
Journalists Guidebook by William Horsley was made available in English
and Russian on the OSCE's
website.

23 May

The
European Court of Human Rights handed down a Chamber judgment
in Mammadov v Azerbaijan on 22 May
finding four violations in the case of Ilgar Mammadov, director of the Baku
School of Political Studies and a blogger. He had been arrested, detained in
custody and sentenced to imprisonment, without reasonable suspicion or evidence,
for fomenting public disorder. This ruling was issued within two months of
his trial. Azerbaijan was chair of the Council of Europe's Committee of
Ministers.

8 July

With
great sadness we announced the death on 6 July of Andrew Mango, AEJ member and
distinguished scholar on modern Turkey. See
Nevsal Hughes's obituary,
written for this website.

17 July

A
report
on defamation by the International Press Institute revealed that most
European countries still punish defamation as a crime. Only Cyprus, Estonia,
Ireland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and the UK have fully decriminalised
it, although it is no longer punishable by imprisonment in four. Insulting
the symbols of statehood is still punishable in 20 countries and public
officials are accorded special protection in 14.

25 July

Olli
Kivinen, once foreign editor of Helsingin
Sanomat and still a distinguished contributor, died on 20 July. He spent
the years 1965-70 as the paper's London correspondent. An active member of
the AEJ's Finnish Section, he was a forceful defender of press freedom.

30 July

With
much sadness we announced that Don Hatwell, a great friend of many in the
section and its former secretary, died on 29 July at the age of 88. After a
lifetime in newspapers, he published his autobiography in 2012 and a
collection of his reviews and other writings as recently as February (seeAEJ in the UK). SeeObituaries for
a tribute by Kevin d'Arcy.

10 August

William
Horsley presented his in-depth
report on the protection of media freedom to the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly on 4 August. It recorded all violent attacks and
official harassment in the previous two years and was first presented in
Strasbourg in June 2014.

7 October

The
AEJ across Europe marked the eighth anniversary of the murder of Anna
Politkovskaya by calling on
Russia to investigate the crime effectively, bring all those responsible
for the killing to justice, remove barriers to journalists and ensure safe
working conditions for them.

17 October

The
AEJ's 52nd annual congress and assembly was held on 16-19 October in Neusiedl
in Austria's Burgenland. Otmar
Lahodynsky, European editor of profil,
was elected as AEJ President. Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz sent a letter of welcome and it was
opened by Laszló Nagy's account of events in 1989 that
eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The
AEJ is to be one of four partners of the Council of Europe in setting up a
website to act as an early warning system for all forms of attack on the
media, due to go live in the first quarter of 2015. The proposed rapid
response mechanism had yet to be agreed. Seeaej.org

4 December

The
AEJ took part in an all-day conference in Paris on 4 December on media
freedom and the security of journalists. William Horsley presented his Report on Protection of Media
Freedom in Europe. It brought the report he prepared in June up to date. The CoE
agreement on an early warning system was finalised and details of the online
platform announced. SeeConference programme

5 December

The AEJ expressed outrage at the arrest of
Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismailova, who was sentenced to
2-month pre-trial detention on 5 December.

Khadija Ismailova, a
broadcaster with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani Service,
was detained on charges of inciting a person to commit suicide, which could
carry a prison sentence of up to seven years if she is convicted. She has
also been charged in a separate case with posting a document on social media
accusing the Azerbaijani secret services of blackmailing an opposition
activist.

One day before her
sentencing in the latter case, Azerbaijan’s Presidential Chief of Staff
Ramiz Aliyev has accused Ms Ismailova of treason. He also accused employees
of RFE/RL of spying.

Khadija Ismailova’s
arrest is the latest and most chilling attempt by the Azerbaijani authorities
to silence her through intimidation and harassment. In 2012 an intimate
video, secretly recorded in her bedroom, was released to the official media
and a coordinated smear campaign was mounted against her. In October this
year she was prevented from travelling abroad to attend an international
conference in Prague. On 19 November she was prevented from testifying at a
US congressional hearing on “Combatting Corruption in the OSCE
region”. No legal or official explanation was given for her
travel ban.

As one of the most
outspoken critics of persistent human rights violations in Azerbaijan,
Khadija Ismailova has investigated and reported extensively on the
forceful repression of civil society organisations and on the business
interests of leading political figures in the country.

The AEJ condemned utterly
this blatant attempt to silence one of the last remaining free and critical
voices in Azerbaijan, and called on the government to release her immediately
and unconditionally.

17 December

"The
Turkish authorities, by carrying out the latest wave of arrests of a large
number of journalists, have crossed a line which is rightly seen as 'out of
bounds' in any democracy ..." – continue reading onaej.org

2013

15 January 2013

William Horsley's
in-depth report for the Council
of Europe on the State of Media Freedom in Europe found that physical
assaults and judicial harassment of journalists and media workers in southern
and eastern Europe grew more intense in the second half of 2012. For a
summary, see www.aej.org

17 January 2013

By the end of 2012,
UNESCO’s record showed that as many as 115 journalists were killed
during the year. An important UN
conference in Vienna in early December received the London
Statement on journalists' safety and the issue of impunity from members
of the global media community. Since then, UNESCO has drawn up an ambitious
implementation strategy for the UN
Plan, including 120 lines of action by UN agencies, governments and
social groups.

22 January 2013

Mehmet Ali Birand, the veteran Turkish
journalist, died on 17 January. AEJ member Michael Lake has written an obituary.

7 February 2013

The EU-sponsored Mediadem
Project held its final conference on 7 February. The AEJ was one of three
partners contributing to the study of public policy and tools designed to
secure media freedom. See William Horsley's comments at the conference.

22 March 2013

The AEJ Media Freedom Representative welcomed the announcement by
Commissioner Neelie Kroes of a public
consultation on media freedom. The AEJ told the
Commission that we would take part actively in the debate on the role and
powers of the EU in safeguarding media freedom in the face of multiple
threats, especially those arising from misuses of state power against independent
media.

On 12 July, the Commission cancelled the
project to spend €3.2m on an external provider of news about EU affairs.
It was announced on 19 June as part of the EU's public procurement programme.
Budgetary constraints were given as the reason for cancellation. Journalistic
and press freedom concerns also spoke for cancellation, as to which see aej.org

The AEJ expressed
acute dismay and alarm at the verdicts and the severity of the sentences
announced on 5 August against many journalists and writers involved in the
Ergenekon trial in Istanbul. See aej.org

3 September
2013

William Horsely's message on the 60th
anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights

12
September 2013

Theresa May affirmed the UK's
commitment to freedom of expression. She sent a reply to a
Council of Europe request
that includes the following avowal by the UK government:

We are fully committed
to meeting our obligations under international human rights law, including
article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
article 10 of the ECHR.

20 September 2013

The UK government replied to the
Council of Europe on its 9-hour detention of David Miranda at Heathrow under
counter-terrorism legislation, as well as on the order that The Guardian destroy hard drives. It
had earlier justified both on grounds of the threat to national security
posed by the material disclosed by Edward Snowden.

Remarks by William Horsley, the AEJ
Media Freedom Representative, and Jan Kleissen, the Council of Europe's
Director for Information Society and Action against Crime, were recorded here
(starting at 34 seconds).

7 October 2013

With sorrow, we
announced the death of our great friend Frank
Gray on 7 October. He was known to many in the AEJ as he had been an
attentive member for years, indeed decades. Taken ill in May and apparently
on the road to recovery, he suffered a setback at the end of September. He
will be sorely missed. SeeObituary.

11 November 2103

Ministers from the 47 states of the
Council of Europe with responsibility for media matters, meeting in Belgrade
on 7-8 November, declared themselves "appalled" that journalists in
Europe are increasingly subject to threats, assaults, imprisonment and death
because of their work.For the full article, see the aej.org

14 November 2013

The UK broke the Council of Europe
consensus on scrutiny of mass surveillance methods at the Belgrade
Conference. It appended a footnote to the resolutions
adopted by the conference dissociating itself from the Council of Europe's
plans to examine the gathering of "vast amounts" of
electronic communications data on individuals by security agencies, including
the deliberate weakening of encryption systems through flaws and backdoors in
the security system of the Internet. For the text of the UK's reservation and
further detail, see the aej.org

22-24
November 2013

The 51st AEJ Annual Congress opened in
Brussels on 22 November with a wide-ranging debate on "Journalism
and Democracy in a Time of Flux". For country reports on media freedom,
see Survey.

26
November 2013

The AEJ's French Section issued a
statement on the kidnap of
Magus Falkehed and Niclas Hammarström in Syria on 23 November. We
in the UK section joined our French colleagues in fervently hoping for the
safe return of these journalists and expressing our concern for all
journalists missing or detained in Syria.

17 December 2013

William Horsley was invited to address
a debate by the Committee
of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 12 December. The text of his address
is available here.

19
December 2013

Turkey's G-9 Platform called for the
immediate release of Bunyamin Aygun, a Turkish photo-journalist captured by
al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria. The G-9 brings together 11 journalists'
associations.

2012

19 January 2012

The UN Human Rights Committee gave its definitive interpretation
of article 19 of the International Covenant, published as “General
Comment 34”. Professor Michael O’Flaherty, the
Committee’s Deputy Chair, gave a speech in June
outlining the Committee’s main findings at the Vilnius Conference on
the safety of journalists (below).

13 March 2012

The AEJ called on the Turkish government to put a stop to the bullying
of employees and union-busting techniques used by the Anatolian News
Agency. See www.aej.org

5 April 2012

Pressure on Turkey to release all 95 journalists in jail has
been stepped up by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. A new report highlights the use of
anti-terrorism and other laws to silence those reporting the Kurdish struggle
for civil and political rights. See www.aej.org

20 April 2012

Report on the Council of Europe's Brighton
Conference on 18-20 April by William Horsley, UK Chairman and AEJ Media
Freedom Representative.

Entitled "UK hails 'substantial reforms
of Europe's Human Rights Court, but what difference will they make?"
William's report can be found here.

The European Parliament and AEJ held a
seminar in Brussels on "Media Freedom in the EU Member States". See
the AEJ's internatonal website,
including a full report
by Krzysztof Bobinski of the AEJ's Polish Section.

A very successful session was held at the
AEJ's annual congress at Offida on 26 October. The AEJ's international
website includes a report
of the event. Overviews by William Horsley and Krzysztof Bobinski and reports
from nine countries with major media freedom problems appear on the Media Freedom Survey page.

9 November 2012

On 6 November, William Horsley addressed the
European Parliament hearing in Brussels on media freedom in the EU. He
called on the EU to defend media freedom and to safeguard journalists'
physical safety in accordance with the European Convention and Council of
Europe standards.

Media self-regulation and codes of ethics are good, but free and
independent media can only exist if governments themselves practise
self-restraint and hold back from attempts to own, control or manipulate the
media. This message was urged by the AEJ’s Media Freedom Representative,
William Horsley, at a UNESCO Conference for international journalists.

In response to a further
serious deterioration of media freedom conditions in Turkey, with more
than 60 journalists now in jail and nationwide press protests against the
abuse of repressive laws, the AEJ has called for concerted pressure from all
responsible European authorities on the Turkish government to end its
harassment of journalists.

Please sign thepetition
calling for the release journalists in prison and repeal of the laws that
were used to punish them.

30 May 2011

The Council of Europe's Secretary
General appointed a special envoy to assess freedom of expression in Turkey.
See CoE press
release

13 June 2011

In the past ten years, 41 journalists have been the object of targeted murders
in OSCE countries. AEJ Media Freedom Representative William Horsley
called on the 56 member states to ratify the Vilnius Recommendations put forward
at an OSCE conference on the safety of journalists on 7-8 June (see
his report).

William Horsley is also
active in the Initiative on
Impunity and the Rule of Law (above), a joint project of the University
of Sheffield and City University. He has written a study of the political
aspects that accompanies a study of the legal instruments needed to give
effect to the initiative. Both documents can be found on the Sheffield website, together with
many other contributions made at a conference on the initiative, held at City
University on 1 June.

The International Day is organised by IFEX,
the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, and is supported by the
AEJ. Each day from 1 to 23 November, the story of one journalist, writer
or free expression advocate killed in the line of duty was featured on
IFEX’s website. See video.

The Guidebook sets out the obligations of OSCE participating states
regarding all aspects of the safety of journalists, and describes best
practice for protecting press freedom and freedom of expression in democratic
societies. See also 13 June 2011, below.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe adopted Recommendation 1897 on
abuse of media freedom in Europe. Quarterly bulletins based on
information supplied by professional organisations, including the AEJ, will
be published.

Lord Andrew McIntosh, who was a British politician who led many
campaigns for media freedom in Europe, died on 27 August 2010, aged 77. William Horsley wrote an obituary.

13 September 2010

An AEJ
statement was made on the death of Belarus journalist, Aleh Byabenin,
by William Horsley, AEJ Media
Freedom Representative.

15 October 2010

At its 2010 Congress
at Ordu, Turkey, the AEJ pledged its active support for three initiatives:
the Council of Europe's Database on Media Violations, the Icelandic Modern
Media Initiative, and the petition by Turkish journalists to secure freedom
for more than 40 of their colleagues who are in prison. See Conference report

5 November 2010

The AEJ urgently
called on the Turkish government to treat media workers and citizens
in line with its international commitments. AEJ members across Europe support
the "Set
Journalists Free Petition" of the Turkish Union of Journalists and
the European Federation of Journalists. See also News on aej.org

9 November 2010

The AEJ joined the OSCE
Representative for Freedom of the Media in calling on all
relevant European institutions to take concerted action to protect
journalists:

The AEJ is shocked and alarmed by two brutal and
life-threatening attacks on Russian journalists within the past few days.

We call on the Russian authorities to take quick and decisive action against
the climate of impunity that encourages such atrocious acts.

We also call on all relevant EU and European
institutions to speak out and take concerted action to protect journalists
and others who dare to expose and criticise abuses of power.

Mr
Edward McMillan-Scott,
the European Parliament's Vice-President for human rights and democracy, was
the section's guest.

3 December 2010

Ambassador
Marc Otte, the EU’s Special Representative for the Middle East
Peace Process, met the UK section of the AEJ for a lunchtime meeting on 3
December 2010.

He gave the AEJ a sober assessment of the
“complex, fluid and dangerous” situation in theMiddle Eastafter spending seven years in his
current post. He described the EU’s contribution to the faltering peace
process both as a “norm-setting” member of the international
Quartet and as the major source of aid, trade and state-building projects in
the region.

He stressed that the EU has repeatedly called on
Israel to stop its settlement-building on occupied Palestinian land in order
to create the right conditions for the peace process to gain momentum, while
the EU also continues to press all Arab groups concerned to end acts of
violence and incitement against Israel.

6 December 2010

The AEJ supports the petition for Belarus
to respect basic human rights and end repressive laws in Belarus. It was
launched by journalists and human rights campaigners in Belarus with Index on Censorship.

It
is hoped that this will increase pressure on the incumbent President
Alexander Lukashenko to remove repressive laws as the presidential election
on 19 December approaches. It is also addressed to the EU’s High
Representative, Catherine Ashton.

20 December 2010

The death ofBrian Hanrahan, BBC foreign correspondent and AEJ member,
was announced. William Horsley, formerly a colleague at the BBC, wrote a tribute to him.

2009

26 January 2009

The report
on communication by government from the House of Lords Committee was
published. It includes evidence
submitted by William Horsley. For the Committee's work generally, see its home
page.

The AEJ won a significant success in defence of media
freedom. A key amendment
with a pledge to review anti-terrorism laws, tabled by William Horsley on
behalf of the AEJ as an Observer, was approved by 46 out of 47 member
states at the Reykjavik ministerial conference on the media. Only Russia
abstained.

11 September 2009

An assessment of the role of media in
combatting discrimination was sent to the Council of Europe as part of
its "Speak out against Discrimination" campaign. The report,
compiled by William Horsley, covers Armenia, Croatia, Poland, Turkey and the
UK. A full account of it, with links to the country reports and a feature
about Russia, can be found on the main AEJ website.

26 October 2009

Twenty journalists were killed in the past three years in Europe,
and the region suffered another setback in media freedom because
of violence, repressive laws and political interference against
the media.

Those are the findings of a report by the AEJ's Media
Freedom Representative William Horsley, commissioned by the Council
of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. It was presented to the Media
Sub-Committee in Luxembourg on 26 October.

The research is to help the Assembly create a stronger
mechanism for monitoring and countering assaults on journalists and
abuses of freedom of expression in the media across Europe.

William Horsley took
part in a debate to mark Human Rights Day, broadcast as the inaugural edition
of ViewPoint, the Council of
Europe's web TV programme (seevideo). The debate
focused on internet and the violation of human rights by online means.See mainAEJ website

10 December 2009

Journalists working in print and broadcast
media in Ukraine face an alarming set of political and other pressures
on their independence. Arthur Rudzitsky and colleagues wrote a special
report in 2009 and a follow-up report on 9 April 2010. In
2010, they launched a new AEJ
section in Kiev

On the second
anniversary of the murder of the Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya,
AEJ Media Freedom Representative William Horsley sent a message to Russian
journalists mourning her death and calling urgently for her killers to
be brought to justice.

25 November 2008

Eduk Baghdasaryan, editor
of Hetq Online and an AEJ member, was assaulted by unknown assailants in
Yerevan on 17 November. He was treated in hospital for a head injury caused
by a rock that was thrown at him. His colleague Liana Sayadyan told the
AEJ's congress of countless attacks on journalists by criminals who
are rarely brought to justice.

We deplore this
situation, express our solidarity with our Armenian colleagues and wish Eduk
a swift recovery. The AEJ's President and its Media Freedom Representative
sent a letter to the
President Serzh Sarkissian of Armenia.

The Association of European
Journalists, which includes journalists from more than 20 countries, welcomes
and celebrates the release of the BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston,
after 114 days of captivity in Gaza. The AEJ was one of many international
organisations which had called on those holding him to set him free.

9 November 2007

Resolution passed at the Annual General Assembly of the AEJ in
Dublin, Ireland, on 9 November 2007:

The Association of European Journalists deplores
the action of Slovakia's Supreme Court in rejecting the judgment of
the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg concerning the right of
journalist Martin Klein to publish a satirical
article about a church leader, Archbishop Jan Sokol.
The position of Slovakia's judicial authorities places the country in
breach of its legal obligations as a member of the Council of Europe to
uphold freedom of expression. This has happened at a time when Slovakia should
be setting a correct example as it starts its six-month
term as chairman of the Committee of Ministers,
the Council of Europe's executive body, on 12
November 2007.

10 November 2007

The AEJ’s Media Freedom Workshop
was held on 10 November as the final session of the Dublin Congress. About
100 members debated
the growing threats to journalistic freedom from undue interference and
censorship. The OSCE’s Media Freedom Representative Miklos Haraszti welcomed as
“excellent” the AEJ’s 20-country Survey Goodbye
toFreedom?William Horsley, the Survey’s
editor, was in the chair.

1 December 2007

The Association of
European Journalists sent a letter to the
Chairman of the Central Election Commission in Russia, Mr Vladimir
Churov, expressing concern about the “overwhelming evidence” of
media bias in favour of United Russia in the current State Duma election
campaign. The letter was sent in the name of the AEJ Media Representative,
William Horsley. It has been circulated today to the UK Press Freedom
Network, including more than 20 media organisations and civil rights NGOs
active in the UK and internationally.